


Bodybag

by periphery87



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen, can be preslash as per usual, dealing with STID, previously posted on my tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-21
Updated: 2016-07-21
Packaged: 2018-07-25 22:40:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7550044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/periphery87/pseuds/periphery87
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post STID: Jim & Bones & a first for something. H/C. Also I have indeed retconned Chapel back onto the Enterprise where she belongs and I'm not sorry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bodybag

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Mckirk headcanon](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/214663) by ussmckirk. 



It’s not really the first crewmember Jim’s lost. That was during the debacle with Marcus: a period of such destruction that it has proved impossible to determine who was first. But that time was… different. That was a galactic disaster. This is a routine diplomatic run. Ensigns aren’t supposed to die in engineering accidents on routine diplomatic runs.

Hawkins feels like the first.

Earlier he met Scotty and two of the nursing staff down at the site, to view the body before they carted it away in a bag, to examine the scene, to talk to everyone who saw it happen. The crew down there is skittish now, and pale. He put them on a skeleton staff for the time being. The bridge has been quiet since he returned – until his own comm goes off.

“Sickbay to bridge.”

“Kirk here.”

“Captain, you’re needed down here.”

He tries to place the voice. Chapel, perhaps. "Why, what’s going on?“

"Please, sir, just trust me.”

Definitely Chapel. The only other person in sickbay who would say something like that is Bones.

His intestines turn over.

“On my way,” he says, and lets go of the button. "Mr. Spock, take the conn.“

"Captain.” Spock comes over to stand by the chair; if he’s worried by the mysterious call, he doesn’t show it. Typical.

—–

What he finds in sickbay isn’t the chaos he’d half-expected. Around one curtain to his right he can just make out M'Benga, leaning over the body bag that must contain Hawkins. Chapel meets him before he can watch any further, starts to steer him slowly towards a different curtain. "Sir, it’s Dr. McCoy – “

"Is he hurt?”

“No, not exactly, he – well, he was supposed to certify Hawkins, but he went over funny when he tried to open the bag, sir.”

She clearly intends this to mean something to him, which it doesn’t, but he’s distracted from asking more because she’s finally led him to Bones. McCoy is in his workstation chair, head propped on one hand, staring fixedly at a distant point on the floor. Jim doesn’t need to touch him to feel the rigidity in his shoulders. "Bones?“

No response. Jim crouches in front of him, bracing himself on McCoy’s knees. "Hey, what’s going on?”

McCoy blinks, focuses on him slowly. "Jim?“

"Yeah, Bones?”

“Christ.” McCoy rocks forward, dropping his face into both hands. "What the hell is wrong with me?“

"Old age?” Jim suggests, a standard response, as he frees a hand to grip the back of the other’s neck. There is a tap on his shoulder: Chapel has brought him his own chair. He levers himself up into it without letting go of Bones, then looks up at her. "I don’t understand,“ he whispers, because clearly she does.

"Sir,” she says, looking uncomfortable, “the last time we had a body bag in here was, well – ”

“You were in it,” McCoy mumbles into his hands.

“Yes, that.”

Jim stares at her. At the top of McCoy’s head. Back to her. He cannot think what to say to this.

“I’ll let you two, um,” she murmurs.

“Bring us a blanket, will you?” He may not have known about the bag, he may not have been able to figure this out on his own, but he does know that Bones runs cold, and he can feel him shaking under his hands, and this is something he can do.

Chapel nods and fetches a sterile med-issue blanket, drapes it gingerly over her boss’s back, then leaves them alone, twitching the curtain closed behind her. Jim lets out a long, slow breath. He looks helplessly at Bones, who has not moved except for the shaking. He tugs the blanket forward, wrapping it more securely about McCoy’s shoulders. He settles in, silent, one hand still on his friend’s knee, one splayed over the nape of his neck.

It’s not like he’s never seen Leonard McCoy lose it before; in fact he is one of approximately three people in the galaxy who has, before today apparently. It never ceases to unsettle him, Bones being generally the most steadfast person he has ever known, but Jim’s done this before. 

It doesn’t usually happen sober, though. 

It isn’t usually about him.

—–

“I’m sorry,” Jim whispers after a long moment. "I never realized…“

"That I’d fall apart like a goddamn idiot over something I’ve done plenty of times before? Me neither.” Bones leans hard into his palms, then sits up, shrugging Jim’s hand off his neck.

“You’re not… I never thought… about it happening like that, I – ”

“How they brought you to me in a bag?”

“I never realized. You never said.”

McCoy is staring at their knees. Jim feels useless, tongue-tied and confused.

“Bones – ”

“You did have a few other things to think about after all that.”

“So?”

“So it wasn’t important.”

“Well it’s important to you.”

“So?”

“So… that matters, all right? Will you look at me? I’m trying to apologize here.” He knew, he knows, how Bones feels things deeply, and hides them deeply as well. He could have… well, he could have been on the lookout, at the very least.

McCoy looks up at him as requested, gripping the edges of the blanket still draped around his shoulders. His eyes are clear and unreddened but still he looks old, old like he did at times during Jim’s hospitalization, when it was just the two of them and he thought Jim wasn’t watching. There are lines around his eyes that weren’t there before Khan.

There must be some kind of answering look on Jim’s face now because McCoy’s mouth twists wryly. "I’m a mess. I know. I’m sorry.“

”No,“ Jim says fiercely. "You’re not – I mean you are but – that’s okay. Honest. I just want to help. Please, Bones. Tell me how I can help.”

Bones looks down again. Jim waits. Finally, on a ragged exhale: “I think… I just need to sit… for a minute.”

“Okay,” Jim says at once, squeezing his knee briefly. "We can do that.“

Bones takes hold of his wrist.

"Hey,” Jim says. "I meant to tell you – you hear about Chekov and the yeoman?“

"Irina?”

“No, she was last month.”

“I’m too old for this. Go on, tell me.”

Jim does. He has them both chuckling, soon, in the damp and jittery way of survivors. They gossip until Chapel comes to check on them, and all the while he pretends not to notice that Bones is taking his pulse.


End file.
